Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Stewards of the Earth
LTK:
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 13 Feb 2015, 16:48 ---I like to remind people that every plant and every animal that has been bred by human ingenuity is a GMO - I love them!
--- End quote ---
You are technically correct but I believe the term GMO applies when an organism has been modified in the lab. It's a completely arbitrary distinction of course, as virtually anything you can do in the lab, you can do with traditional culturing. Apparently when agricultural scientists with lab coats and pipettes get involved, people get kinda antsy.
Anyway, the thing about genetic modification is that geneticists know exactly what the protein is that they are making the modified organism encode, so for a GMO to become directly harmful to humans when eaten, you would literally have to add a gene that produces actual toxin. The detailed knowledge of the modified genes means this cannot possibly happen by accident. If a protein is not directly toxic to humans but sets off a cascade reaction that does produce toxic products, this can be either predicted from the plant's known metabolism, or observed in the first-generation modified specimen. Finally, if a gene does not produce a toxic product by itself but allows the plant to tolerate an externally added toxic product, then yes, you might have a reason to be worried. The best known example of this is the Roundup-ready gene which allows a plant to resist the Roundup herbicide, courtesy of our friends at Monsanto. I recall this herbicide getting some bad press but a quick check of Wikipedia doesn't indicate its use has resulted in harm to humans.
tl;dr: if you're worried about GMOs, wash your vegetables.
Aziraphale:
What Stephen said. Mendel wasn't inserting fish genes into tomatoes. The one reason that I'm skeptical is that there are plenty of things that were "safe" 'til they weren't -- asbestos, DDT, and artificial sweeteners off the top of my head, though I'm sure if I Googled, I could come up with more examples.
On the other hand, between global warming, water shortages, and an exploding population, it's pretty clear that our food problems aren't going to solve themselves. What bothers me more about GMO crops isn't so much the fact that they're modified, anyway; it's the fact that LTK mentions... lots of things have been modified specifically to make them resistant to higher strengths and doses of pesticides (some of which are neurotoxic to humans) and herbicides, neither of which are good for human consumption no matter how hard anyone tries to spin it.
explicit:
Point number 1.) Monsanto can eat a dick.
Other points (hurr hurr): I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with GMOs, but I do agree that the fact that they're resistant to many pesticides/insecticides/other cides, makes it so they're liable to be covered in the stuff. Not to mention that farmers will use more (seeing as the plant won't get hurt) which can wreck havoc on the ecosystem.
I'm with the people who say a GMO will give you cancer because of it's structure though. That and even if you try to stay away from all GMOs I can almost guarantee that you eat them on a daily basis.
Despite ecological damage they can do - by both existing (possibility to become invasive, harming insect population, etc) and because of the shit people put around them - they do what they're supposed to. Which is use less water, on less land and produce a higher yield. This can be especially important for impoverished nations. Unfortunately when it comes to feeding people there's always a yin and yang.
pwhodges:
I know I over-simplified. The point is, though, that humans have been changing the world around them for their entire existence, and these effects have always been a mixture of good and bad. Modern GMOs are no different. I love that they can increase yields, or be used to create or deliver medicines in new ways; I hate that they can be used to force farmers to buy seed instead of creating and reusing it. Overall, I think that we have more to worry about with global warming than GMOs.
Also, when people talk about "preserving the world", they nearly always mean "in the state it was in when I grew up" rather than the state it would have been in if humanity hadn't influenced it.
hedgie:
Personally, I'm more worried about monoculture, and people like Monsanto owning the imaginary property rights to our food, than I am about the safety of such foods. I wash everything anyhow, but I can't stand the idea of farmers not being able to save seeds for the next year, even though there is genetic drift happening which causes them to get sued into oblivion, or indenture.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version